Authors: Hitha Prabhakar
This is corroborated by Chris from the Congo, who admits that most of his fellow vendors take the money they make and send it home to the Congo, Somalia, or Senegal because they feel it’s their religious duty. “To be honest, I don’t know where exactly the money is going,” Chris tells me. “I don’t have time to do my research, and I trust since it’s a charity they are doing good things with my money. But just because I don’t know where my charitable donations are going doesn’t mean my fellow vendors don’t know either. I am the first person to admit that our governments are corrupt and it wouldn’t be the first time ‘charitable funds’ were used to fund something paramilitary. It doesn’t make me that angry. I know I did the right thing by giving my money away, and that’s what matters.”
Kris Buckner, a scruffy surfer type who looks more like he hangs out on the beaches of Kauai instead of being the owner of Investigative Services in Los Angeles, has been tracking piracy groups who engage in selling counterfeit products. Through his extensive network of sources, he has uncovered how funds from the sale of counterfeit items are sent back to specific terrorist groups in their countries of origin.
“We’ve been looking at the Somalians, the Senegalese, and the Ghanaians. As a private investigator familiar with these cases, there is no doubt in my mind money is going back to those organizations,” he says one afternoon in his southern California office. “Not only have I been told that by sources, I’ve had a source call me at 4 a.m. to tell me $120,000 is going back to Hezbollah by way of unmarked bags through the Los Angeles International Airport. When I let the authorities know this transaction was about to take place, they intercepted the transporter and seized the cash.”
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In other cases, Buckner, who has posed as an undercover buyer of counterfeit items, has witnessed how his sellers pay homage to Hezbollah in their homes and warehouses.
“The minute I walked into their home, I saw the Hezbollah flags and New Warrior tattoos and knew exactly what was going on,” he says. “I not only knew they were engaging in the buying and selling of counterfeit apparel and handbags, they were raising money for their cause by selling counterfeit goods. They funnel money back to the cause in cash, with the money going back in small amounts through wire transfers, hawalas, and Western Union-type stuff. Sources within that community gave me information that the people I was doing a deal with undercover were giving the money back to the Hezbollah. Their whole mission is money, and America is the cash cow. The money they raise here by selling counterfeit goods helps support suicide bombers and logistical support on the ground in these countries, and they are not about to let that slip away.”
In the his piece “44 Ways to Support Jihad,” Anwar al-Awlaki calls for the support of jihad with wealth. “The financial Jihad has preceded the physical Jihad in every verse except one,” he states. “The most important thing to the Jihad is wealth because Jihad depends on it. In other words, no money, no Jihad, and Jihad needs lots of it. That is why, according to Al Qurtubi, that the personal reward for money given as Sadaqah is multiplied by ten, but the reward for money spent in Jihad is multiplied by 700!”
Awlaki also notes that jihad can be supported by fund-raising for and financing the mujahideen (Muslim fighters). “In addition to paying from your own money, you should encourage others to do the same.” Awlaki quotes Rasulullah: “The one who guides others toward a good deed would receive rewards equal to those who practice it. By fund-raising for the Mujahideen you are also fulfilling a sunnah of Rasulullah (saaws) (in a nutshell, this means a Muslim’s religious obligations to Allah and practicing of Islamic law) which he would often practice before going out for a battle.”
As Local as Down the Street
Jack Gee is a retired Florida-based cop of 31 years and former president of the Florida Law Enforcement Property Recovery Unit. These days he spends his time as the founder of the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail (CLEAR), where he interfaces with retailers and law enforcement to help build better systems to fight ORC. In his years of fighting ORC, Gee still remembers the exact moment when he realized how much of what he recovered from a sting of a local mom-and-pop deli was funding a terrorist attack.
Gee explains that out of all the mom-and-pop deli ORC stings he’s been involved in, almost half are being watched by the FBI task force or were on their terrorist list even before 9/11.
“There is a huge correlation between ORC and terrorism, especially on the grassroots level,” says Gee. “They get brainwashed for whatever reason into believing this is the way to support their faith, people, and country and that their God wants them to do this.”
Funding Evil Under the Guise of Charitable Contributions: The Mosques
In 2003, the Al Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn came under scrutiny when it was discovered that several Brooklyn businessmen and a cleric from Yemen, according to prosecutors, funneled more than $20 million to al Qaeda.
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According to NYPD police commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, “They [al Qaeda] did fund-raising right here in our own backyard.” Although the money trail is unclear in the affidavit, Abderahman Mohamed, the Imam of the Al Farooq mosque, said in an interview that one of the functions of the mosque is to serve as a go-between for donors and charities. “The mosque had never
knowingly steered donations to terrorists,” he said. “It would be hard for a mosque like us to control a large organization once the money leaves us.” In other words, although they require worshipers to donate a portion of their earnings to charity, they have no idea what the charity might be funding or where the funds go after they are donated.
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On the first floor of the mosque is a man who started an unlicensed money transferring business out of a rented storefront. The hawala is where many members of the mosque would transfer funds back to their homelands.
Muslim Charities: Capitalizing on Natural Disaster and Religious Empathy
In addition to mosques, many Muslim charities and organizations are fronts for illegal activity. Terrorist groups take advantage of the notion that Muslims are required by their religion to donate a portion of their earnings to charitable causes. One way they engage in fund-raising is by taking advantage of “the business of national disaster.” Jihadists capitalize on the global sentiment of wanting to help out the country (in this case, the Pakistani earthquakes of 2005 and the floods of 2010) by taking a percentage of the money given by people within the country. Once the funds are in their pockets, they use the money for weapons procurement, the financing of training camps, and logistical support.
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Many “shadowy donations” flow into Pakistan through both normal and illegal banking channels, according to an official with the Federal Investigation Agency crime department in Pakistan.
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Donations come from the Middle East and Europe and are funneled into Islamic charities, which act as a front for militant organizations. The Holy Land Foundation (originally known as the
Occupied Land Fund) was established in California in 1989 as a tax-exempt charity and moved to Texas in 1992. The organization’s main offices were in California, New Jersey, and Illinois, but it had representatives across the U.S., the West Bank, and Gaza.
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In 2006, The Holy Land Foundation and many of its directors were indicted on criminal charges for providing millions of dollars of material and logistical support to Hamas offices in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as other charitable organizations that were part of or controlled by Hamas.
Other groups pretend they are collecting funds for charity but are actually funding a terrorist group. A nonprofit identified by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering falsely asserted that it was collecting funds for orphans and widows. The finance chief of the nonprofit was head of organized fund-raising for Osama bin Laden, and the money collected on behalf of the charities was actually being turned over to al Qaeda operatives.
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In most cases, extremist organizations have welfare wings, such as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which collects money for schools and medical clinics and is also a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT),
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the same terrorist organization that took responsibility for the Mumbai attacks in 2008. “At least 800 million rupees [$940,000] have been allocated for the institutions [linked to the Jamaat-ud-Dawa] during the current fiscal year,”
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said Rana Sanaullah, a senior Punjab minister, in an interview with the BBC.
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During the Pakistani earthquake in 2005 and the flooding in 2010, global sentiment expressed through donations gave terrorists an opportunity to exploit the influx of cash.
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Talat Masood, a retired army general from Pakistan, admits the Jamaat-ud-Dawa was quicker and more efficient in responding with disaster relief, especially during the 2010 floods and the 2005 earthquake. With that said, he does not believe the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s charitable help is altruistic; he thinks they are being helpful to try to recruit potential members. “They have a grassroots network which
operates in several parts of the country. And so they’re the first ones to respond to disasters, because the government takes much longer to respond,” said Masood.
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Wealthy international donors are also a main source of income for fringe terrorist organizations because of their sympathetic ties. Abu Abdul Aziz, an Indian Muslim donor from Saudi Arabia, invested millions of dollars in LeT, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and various jihadi organizations, even donating 10 million rupees to build a mosque at Markaz-e-Dawa’s headquarters. He has been credited with organizing a jihad in Bosnia as well as helping the Kashmiris fight the government of India.
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Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq (once the Markaz-e-Dawa Irshad) was designated by the U.S. Treasury department as a terrorist organization and a front for the LeT. As of 2009, the IKK ran 200 schools, 11 madrassas, two science colleges, an ambulance service, mobile clinics, and blood banks.
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The IKK received donations from wealthy overseas businessmen involved in the buying and selling of stolen and counterfeit DVDs, CDs, and apparel items. It also received the benefits of a “call to action” on behalf of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (one of the terrorist organizations linked to the Mumbai attacks in November 2008).
According to the
Wall Street Journal
, the Jamaat had been asking its Pakistani, U.S., and European supporters to also give money to the IKK by depositing funds in an Alfalah Ltd. bank account in the name of a separate charity.
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What’s more, U.S. supporters were allegedly asked to make donations via wire transfers through the Bank of New York. A Bank of New York spokesperson said that no donations were ever transmitted through the account. However, in the same interview with the
Wall Street Journal
, Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior minister, said despite investigations that are under way regarding the Jamaat funding and assets, “The government is not tracking everyone’s accounts, frankly speaking.”
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After the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan shut down all but one account of the Jamaat, where they were still receiving donations weeks after the government supposedly
announced that all assets were frozen. The IKK played an integral role in giving funds to the Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (a Sunni anti-American missionary organization formed in the 1980s to oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan)
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to help victims of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake as well as other natural disasters.
Terrorist Fund-Raising Via Charities Finds Roots in the U.S.
Fund-raising also occurs on American soil through recruitment. In August 2010, 14 people from Minneapolis, Minnesota; Mobile, Alabama; San Diego, California; and Rochester, Michigan were indicted for helping support the al Shabaab by fund-raising. The al Shabaab is a conservative insurgent faction similar to the Taliban, with ties to al Qaeda.
Amina Farah Ali is a 33-year-old “go-to woman” when it comes to donating items and money to help the needy in Somalia. She and Hawo Mohamed Hassan, a 63-year-old with a kind face and gentle dark features, were accused of going door to door raising money under false pretenses by claiming it was for the poor. Both women were living in Rochester, a small town in southern Michigan, and were known to preach to the community about the virtues of donation and giving.
Ali, like any typical American, had a stable job and by all accounts was a productive member of the community. Working as a home health care provider, and a longtime resident of Rochester, she never had any issues with the law. Likewise, Hassan was self-employed and ran a daycare center. While Ali insists she is innocent, the indictment states that after the FBI raided her home in 2009, she placed a call to Somalia, stating, “I was questioned by the enemy here... they took all of my stuff and are investigating it... do not accept calls from anyone.”
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Abdifatah Abdinur, a community leader in Rochester, told the AP in an interview, “I know a lot of people might send money or
goods, without knowing the consequences of what they are doing. I was surprised, as almost everybody was, [to learn] that she was sending clothes to the al Shabaab.”
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